scholarly journals Rational choice theory and social research

Sociologija ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 598-611 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bojan Krstic ◽  
Milos Krstic
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Methodological Challenge ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Sociological Approaches ◽  
Applied Fields

The paper is devoted to the analyses of methodological and metatheoretical problems of rational choice theory. The methodological challenge is associated with the questions: whether rational choice theory can be appropriately empirically tested and whether RCT allows researchers to derive interesting hypotheses with regard to substantive fields of application? The answers to these questions have important implications for the rational choice theory?s ambition to be appropriate basis for the implementation of social research. In this paper, allso, we analyse the following metatheoretical problems: how to deal with the apparent counterevidence that stems from applied fields of sociological research: Is it possible to provide explanations of this evidence within RCT by widening its core assumptions and thereby broadening the set of allowed auxiliary assumptions? Or does RCT have to be enriched (and if so, how?) by integrating concepts and mechanisms of other sociological approaches for it to remain a reasonable workhorse and starting point for sociological research?

scholarly journals The Uneasy Case for Parsimony in (Law and) Economics: Conceptual, Empirical and Normative Arguments

Global Jurist ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Péter Cserne
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Law And Economics ◽  
Intellectual Honesty ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Value Judgements ◽  
Parsimonious Models ◽  
Economic Analyses ◽  
Conceptual Difficulties

Abstract Taking Guido Calabresi’s discussion of preferences and value judgements in The Future of Law and Economics as a starting point, this paper analyses some conceptual difficulties, epistemic benefits and normative uses of parsimonious economic analyses of “tastes and values.” First, the paper shows that it is not only possible to analyse and model all the richness of “tastes and values” in terms of rational choice theory with intellectual honesty and epistemic benefit. In fact, economists and economically inspired legal scholars have been doing this for a while. Second, it discusses three arguments that economists can mount in support of parsimonious models. Third, it shows that in spite of these benefits the merits of such an exercise in parsimony do not always clearly outweigh its drawbacks. In doing so, the paper distinguishes three types of limits of such parsimonious modelling.

China Challenges Secularization Theory

2009 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 362-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karel Dobbelaere
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Chinese Religion ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Secularization Theory ◽  
Sociological Literature ◽  
Religious Associations

The author proposes a reflection on challenges that the three anthropological articles in this issue present for secularization theory. The first two discuss “performances” of religion in two different Chinese cultural periods: welfare services offered by recognized religious associations in the People’s Republic of China and the judicial rituals in colonial settings. The author suggests similarities with such “performances” in western culture. The second part of the article discusses some issues raised by Szonyi in his comparison of recent social research literature on Chinese religion and sociological literature on secularization: a critique of the concept of “modernity” in relation to secularization; a reflection on the possibility of establishing a secularization theory with universal validity; how to integrate rational choice theory and secularization theory; the validity of secularization in view of individual religious sensitivity; and secularization as an ideology and a discussion of the so-called “privatization of religion” in secularized settings.

Collective Political Action

2001 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl-Dieter Opp
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Research Program ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Explanatory Models ◽  
Political Protest ◽  
Exogenous Variables ◽  
Starting Point

AbstractThis paper describes a research program that focuses on the explanation of political protest and its causes. The starting point is Mancur Olson’s theory of collective action. This theory is modified, extended and applied to explain political protest. In particular, it is argued that only a wide version of Rational Choice theory that includes ‘soft’ incentives as well as misperception is capable of providing valid explanations of protest behavior. Another part of the research program is the utilization of survey research to test the predictions about protest behavior that are generated from the wide version of Rational Choice theory. The research program further aims at (a) comparing empirically Rational Choice and alternative propositions, (b) providing micro-macro explanatory models, (c) dynamic theoretical models, and (d) explaining preferences and beliefs which are usually treated as exogenous variables. The paper further reports, some results of the research program.

scholarly journals Is rational choice theory still a rational choice of theory? A response to Opp

2013 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 361-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gianluca Manzo
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Probability Distributions ◽  
Specific Class ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Alternative Action ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Micro Foundations

Authoritative rational choice theorists continue to argue that wide variants of rational choice theory should be regarded as the best starting-point to formulate theoretical hypotheses on the micro foundations of complex macro-level social dynamics. Building on recent writings on neo-classical rational choice theory, on behavioral economics and on cognitive psychology, the present article challenges this view and argues that: (1) neo-classical rational choice theory is an astonishingly malleable and powerful analytical device whose descriptive accuracy is nevertheless limited to a very specific class of choice settings; (2) the ‘wide’ sociological rational choice theory does not add anything original to the neo-classical framework on a conceptual level and it is also methodologically weaker; (3) at least four alternative action-oriented approaches that reject portrayal of actors as computational devices operating over probability distributions can be used to design sociological explanations that are descriptively accurate at the micro level.

A Genealogy of Rational Choice: Rationalism, Elitism, and Democracy

2008 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 749-771 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. S. Maloy
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Fin De Siecle ◽  
Empirical Proposition ◽  
The Family ◽  
Family Resemblances ◽  
Fin De Siècle

Abstract. Unlike previous methodological debates in political science, the recent rational choice controversy has excluded consideration of normative questions altogether. These can be recovered, in part, through a genealogy of counter-utopian democratic theory which connects modern rational choice theory to the fin-de-siècle sociology of elites via the mediating figure of Schumpeter. The family resemblances include the aspiration toward a pure science of society, the search for a “realistic” theory of democratic politics, and the shading of an empirical proposition about elite domination into a normative celebration. Though democratic theorists have learned much from the counter-utopian tradition generally, both sides of the rational choice controversy have failed to take seriously the elitists' recognition of the ineluctable normative and ideological dimensions of social research.Résumé. Les débats récents sur le choix rationnel, à contre-pied d'autres disputes méthodologiques en science politique, ont exclu les questions normatives. Ces questions peuvent se rétablir, en partie, par l'intermédiaire d'une généalogie contre-utopiste de la théorie démocratique, qui lie la théorie moderne du choix rationnel au retour de la sociologie élitiste de fin de siècle, avec le personnage de Schumpeter comme médiateur. Les ressemblances familiales portent l'aspiration à une science pure de la société, la recherche d'une théorie «réaliste» de la démocratie et la transition d'une proposition empirique sur la domination des élites vers une célébration normative. Bien que les théoriciens démocratiques aient beaucoup appris de la tradition contre-utopiste, aucune des deux parties du débat sur le choix rationnel n'a pris en compte la reconnaissance élitiste des aspects idéologiques inévitables de la recherche sociale.

What is Analytical Sociology? Strengths and weaknesses of a new sociological research program

2013 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl-Dieter Opp
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Research Program ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Empirical Theory ◽  
New School ◽  
Middle Range ◽  
Theory Comparison ◽  
Analytical Sociology

In this article, several problems of Analytical Sociology (AS) – a new school of sociological thought – are discussed. A first contention of this article is that the critique of the covering-law model (i.e. the Hempel–Oppenheim scheme) submitted by proponents of AS is problematic. The rejection of rational choice theory in AS is criticized as well. It is argued that the alleged alternative general theory applied by proponents of AS, namely DBO theory (claiming that Desires, Beliefs and Opportunities determine behavior), is equivalent to a wide version of rational choice theory. Furthermore, the focus on theories of the middle range in AS and the neglect of general theories is considered problematic. Finally, it is argued that the goals of AS can better be achieved if it is supplemented by a research program of empirical theory comparison.

Rational Choice Theory and the 1990 Party Merger in South Korea

OUGHTOPIA ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-282
Author(s):  
In-Kyun Kim ◽  
Myeong-Geon Koh
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory

POLITICS-LAW CONVERGENCE OR DIVERGENCE? 'SMALL' POLITICAL PARTIES, REALPOLITIKAND SOUTH AFRICA'S 20 YEARS OF DEMOCRACY

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kealeboga J Maphunye
Keyword(s):  
Game Theory ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Democratic Consolidation ◽  
Secondary Research ◽  
Extant Literature ◽  
African Charter

This article examines South Africa's 20-year democracy by contextualising the roles of the 'small' political parties that contested South Africa's 2014 elections. Through the  prism  of South  Africa's  Constitution,  electoral legislation  and the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, it examines these parties' roles in South Africa's democratisation; their influence,  if any, in parliament, and whether they play any role in South Africa's continental or international engagements. Based on a review of the extant literature, official documents,  legislation, media, secondary research, reports and the results of South Africa's elections, the article relies on game theory, rational choice theory and theories of democracy and democratic consolidation to examine 'small' political parties' roles in the country's political and legal systems. It concludes that the roles of 'small' parties in governance and democracy deserve greater recognition than is currently the case, but acknowledges the extreme difficulty experienced by the 'small'  parties in playing a significant role in democratic consolidation, given their formidable opponent in a one-party dominant system.

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